


dew

by aPaperCupCut



Category: Penumbra (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Confusion, Depression, Gen, Philip Lives, Pseudoscience, Weird Alien Stuff, philip has a sister yo, slice of life esque
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 14:31:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17265893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aPaperCupCut/pseuds/aPaperCupCut
Summary: “Wh - what?”The man, with reddened, roughened features, gruff and dirty with dust, stuttered on the screen. The blue fuzz as she touched it leapt to her fingers with a staticy feel, and she didn't jump. She couldn't stop staring. That familiar, unfamiliar visage, a stranger she had never known, all throughout her life.Ann Buchanan almost doesn't recognize her brother, the man who had gone missing without a trace, just a year before. But she is not beyond impulsive decisions, and her gut is more than enough to convince her to do it.Thus begins Philip's life after the Shelter, after the Tuurngait.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so, imma have spoilers real fast for my other penumbra fic 'after,' but basically i wanted to write something slice of life-y because i never do that, but i had three ideas for a philip-lives au. one where he gets publicity and gets taken into custody by global organizations, one where he had a sister who wanted to reconnect with him, and another where the archaic catch him. 'after' is with the archaic, and this fic is with philips sister and big gov.
> 
> im super uninventive, so all these ocs are made up on the spot, yeah? i also kinda made a joke with the sisters name... anyways, slow updates, and slow pacing.

“Wh - what?”

 

The man, with reddened, roughened features, gruff and dirty with dust, stuttered on the screen. The blue fuzz as she touched it leapt to her fingers with a staticy feel, and she didn't jump. She couldn't stop staring. That familiar, unfamiliar visage, a stranger she had never known, all throughout her life.

 

“Sir - Sir, are you alright?”

 

The newscaster spoke with such vigour, thrusting the mic into the man's face, ignoring his drooping, lazy eyes, that roved about without purpose. As expected, the man turned away, no answer coming from him except another muttered, incomprehensible garble of words. The emergency paramedics ushered him away from the newscaster, draping a shock blanket over his bony shoulders.

 

“Well, I suppose that'll be all, folks, for this bizarre story. As of yet, very little is known about this mysterious… informant. We will update you as more information is released.”

 

She inhaled sharply, a tear finding its way to her eye. She didn't know what to do.

 

Was it him? It had to be. He looked identical to the pictures she'd last received, identical to the last time she'd seen him.

 

Philip wasn't exactly brother material. He was a very naturally charming person, but he was gullible and introverted. Not exactly easy to get close to, especially when you had a ten year gap and different upbringing. She spent most of her childhood watching him with wide eyes, as he crept silently back into his room from school or work. He left as soon as he believed he could - which was when she was seven. She hadn't kept contact with him.

 

She had attended the funeral, of course. She had never been close to her mother, hadn't really visited her after moving out, and maybe that was why the woman died at a relatively young age. Abandoned by her first husband, left a widow by her second, and then abandoned once more by her two children. What a lonely way to go.

 

Philip had been reticent at the event, barely looking at her - barely looking at anybody. Maybe she should've expected his disappearance. But maybes didn't change much, did they? Hindsight was twenty-twenty, after all.

 

The television interrupted her thoughts, with a crackle of interception - it was a decently old machine - and a single sentence. The rest froze her completely.

 

“As paramedics, international government officials, and multiple private organizations request information about this man, this _John Doe,_ if you will, we implore our viewers to contact these numbers if they believe they have any relevant information. As of now, the affiliates of the Kingdom of Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are looking into this affair. The documents recovered from the underground base the man sent the distress signal from indicate a necessity for an investigation the likes of which the international community has not seen in decades. This will quite possibly be the largest story of the new century.”

 

Was it Philip? She didn't know. But some part of her yelled to call, to ask - because this was the only lead she had after a _year._ And by god, if she was sick of sitting around doing nothing.

 

So, Ann plucked the little cheap landline telephone from its bed, completely unaware of just how drastic such a decision would be.


	2. Chapter 2

The lights overhead burn into his retinas, and he gasps aloud in pain, trying desperately to roll over and cover his watering eyes. But his arms refuse to turn, his torso trapped - god, holy _fuck, he's trapped, he’s bound, oh_ god, oh--

 

“Shit! Someone go get the doctor, I think he's up!”

 

A voice - disgruntled, rough and perhaps unsympathetic, but it's _a human voice._ He immediately stops struggling, his muscles turning to unmoving stone. He can't breathe, each inhale shallow and quick, each exhale stuttering, like breathing through cement.

 

“Geeze, dude, calm down!” Hands. Hands, they're _on_ him, god, _god._ “Shiiit, I'm getting them off, I'm getting ‘em off!”

 

He's blinking, trying to get the glare from his eyes, but the white light overwhelms everything. With a dull, muted snap, his binds come undone - and he jumps to his feet. Or, he tries to.

 

“Woah, _woooaaaah --_ shit, fuck!”

 

He's fallen, collapsed like a shoddily assembled toy, thrown from the top of a creaky bunk bed. There are arms around him, lifting him up, sweaty, nervous palms combing over his sides. He's shaking, he _can't fucking stop shaking,_ cold and burning and _alive._

 

Alive. He's alive. He's _alive._

 

“Sir, sir, please, I - I thought it'd calm him down, _shit._ ”

 

Philip, - right, that's his name, isn't it, couldn't be anything else, no one's called him different, he's never chosen anything different, oh no no no! - Philip, Philip's trying to _see._ He's so cold, he clambers over whoever's holding him, shaking, trying to seek out that warmth, god, _he wants to go home._

 

“Stop - Stop moving, Patrick. Just _stay calm._ ” Another voice. They are steady, cold and calm. He shudders. “Stay _still._ He's panicking, and who knows what shit is going through his head. Looks like he's trying to calm down. And if _you_ keep your cool, he'll follow.”

 

“Are - Are you sure?”

 

“Yes, I'm sure.” The click of footsteps on linoleum. He wants to vomit at the sound; if he never hears it again, it'll be too soon.

 

“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

 

Philip is listening. He's being spoken to. He squeezes his eyes shut, something slick sliding down his chin. He can't bring himself to break the ringing silence in his head. Philip nods.

 

“Do you know where, you are, Sir?” It's the man he's being held by - he can feel the vibrations of the man's voice echo through his body.

 

He shakes his head.

 

“Why don't you take a look around?” It's asked imploringly, curiously. It means no insult, no cruelty, despite the cold stone in its tenure.

 

In answer, he brings trembling hands to his face, batting at his still stinging eyes. Philip is sure he's bleeding from them. Ha, what a joke. He's seen blood pour from empty eye sockets before. What an irony that he'd share the same fate.

 

What an irony, a fortunate, _giddy_ irony, that he is alive at all.

 

They seem to realize quickly what he means, as he's picked up - is he really that light? - and set back down on the bed. If it was a bed - he's not sure. The call for a doctor implies that it's a gurney, a _hospital_ gurney, but does it really matter?

 

“Alright, we've dimmed the lights. May I see your eyes? If they are giving you pain, then I must see why.”

 

When he nods, the owner of the dry, steady voice prods gently at his right, then his left, eye. He doesn't open them, not until the other taps the lower lid of each. He's not sure if it's what they wanted, but he's relieved when nothing burns, nor shoots electric pulses of pain through his brain.

 

The room Philip is in is dark, although he has no doubt that it's for his benefit. It's small, with white walls appearing grey in the dim light, a closed and curtained window directly across from him. When he twists around, he sees a closed metal door with no handle. The two men in the room stand close together, one in what seems to be an intern’s uniform and the other straight backed, clothes in simple medical attire.

 

“Can you see, Sir?” The doctor murmurs, deep baritone echoing in the small room. “Your eyes appear to be strained, but without more delicate tools, I cannot tell if there is more serious damage. Are you in any pain?”

 

Philip looks from man to man, and then, swearing silently that _it's just like a band-aid, just like a band-aid,_ he croaks out, “I suppose… I see as well as I must, Doctor. I'm not hurting, but my throat is dry and I can't stop this damned shaking.”

 

He's thankful that the words are understandable, that despite the drag of air in his throat, he can still speak clearly enough.

 

The doctor nods to the younger man - Patrick, maybe? - and the man hurries to a small sink Philip hadn't noticed before. A glass is given to him and he drinks without blinking, only really considering poison when he's swallowed too much to be safe. So he shrugs internally and drinks the entire cup down.

 

“I assume you are of British origin?”

 

“Oh - oh, yes, I am.” He's surprised. He hasn't quite got his balance yet; god, he's still so confused about the simple fact that he _isn't dead._ “Why do you ask? In fact, where _am_ I?”

 

The doctor shoos his assistant out. Patrick gives him a final, curious glance as he leaves, but all Philip can think of, now that he's somewhat sensible, is the embarrassment of trying to crawl over the man in his panic. The doctor rounds the bedside table, fidgeting with his sleeves.

 

“I do apologize, in advance,” The man begins, and Philip feels a tremour stutter along his fingertips. “I don't know who you are. In fact, you have been dubbed ‘John Doe,’ for the last few days, although there have been several calls claiming to recognize you.

 

“You were found inside a previously unknown, assumed uninhabited, underground… _base_ \- for lack of a better word - where you and many unknown bodies were recovered.

 

“I'm afraid I know little past that. You have been taken into custody by the Atlantic Affiliates of Northern Islands. I don't know much, if anything at all, about the society, other than that they have a vested interest in knowing exactly what you were doing there.

 

“I am here for your health and nothing more. I know this is… a lot, to drop on you so soon after waking from a near permanent coma, but I do not make a habit of withholding information from my patients.”

 

Philip runs his hands over his temple, then his eyes; then he gives up and scrubs them through his hair, dry and crackly strands giving sparks of pain as he pulls at them. He's so confused. He doesn't know what to do, what to _say._

 

The doctor delicately grasps his hands, pulling them away from his face. As they stare eye to eye, he can't stop shaking. Fuck this damnable shaking.

 

“I know this is overwhelming. You are going to face a lot of questions, and at this point you may have damage to your memories - we will leave examinations til later, don’t worry,” The doctor says. “But until this point, as I stated before, we have been calling you ‘John Doe.’ If you remember, Sir, and if you don't mind, what is your name?”

 

Philip feels a great burden lay itself upon his shoulders, and a myriad of thoughts wrestles in his mind. Should he tell this kindly doctor his name? What danger would it be? And memory impairment - did he actually lose his memories? He couldn't make sense of anything. He could barely recall contacting his friend at the university, and his mind refused to work, wandering from sparking, painful thoughts to dizzying images.

 

If he did tell the man his name, would one of the calls that claimed to know him go through? An insidious sentence forms in his aching head, and he tries to clamp it down, to silence it, but fails.

 

_Has anyone been looking for him? Has anyone cared, that he's been gone?_

 

He hadn't left any note, any message, behind. He hadn't cared to, at the time, but now…

 

The idea that no one wanted to look for him - or that no one had noticed… It pains him more than he ever thought it would.

 

A name - what use is in a name? What point was there in lying?

 

“I'm…”

 

The doctor starts; pen in hand, rising over paper. He had been resting beside the bedside, scribbling notes, checking the quietly beeping medical device set on top of the table. He was listening.

 

“I…” Philip sighs, running a hand over his face once more. “My name's Philip. It's good to be awake, Doctor.”

 

* * *

 

Things after that pass quickly, yet slowly at the same time. He is given pills, and then he sleeps; he wakes, and is ushered from room to room, corridors endlessly empty and silent in between. Machines he can't identify crowd the rooms, and he is examined by not just the doctor, who accompanies him when he ventures from his room, but by many masked officials.

 

He is cold to it all. Tired, apathetic; by god, he is thankful for his life, but he could care less where he goes from here. Philip hopes that, eventually, this… Northern Alliance, or whatever it's called, will grow tired of his non answers. That they will grow tired, just as tired as he is, of asking questions that have answers that he does not wish to recall.

 

Philip is at least relieved that his memory is relatively intact. While they have yet to conduct any kind of brain scan, simple recall tests as well as his own intense self reflection tells a simple story: most of his memories still exist, and only a few black gaps marr his mind.

 

The questions - about why he had been there, who the bodies belonged to, what had happened, etcetera, etcetera - he refused to answer. Every answer sat on his tongue, a fat droplet of honey that he swallows back down each time. The idea of speaking of that deplorable place, of those impossible things… he doesn't care to do that. Especially since he doesn't know what these strangers will do with such information.

 

Now, he simply waits - for what, he doesn't know.

 

Only the whisperings in his mind, so faint and unintelligible, call up the dread that rests like a slimy toad inside his throat. He can't calm himself, no matter what the doctor says.

 

Three days pass.

 

And it seems as though things have calmed, somewhat; and then, on the fourth night, he is woken by several men, who rush him out of the room, still laying upon his gurney. He is so bewildered, half awake and dizzy, that he says nothing in protest.

 

They mutter over his head, words obscured by the headgear they all wear. Philip realizes that the doctor who had assisted him, who had hushed him when he shot frenzied questions at the strangers, was not here. Neither was Patrick, who had begun bringing him his meals. He began to struggle, panic flaring in his breast.

 

Without hesitation, without a word, one of the strange people reached over his head, clamping a hand over Philip's jaw, sealing his mouth shut. He tries to swing his body over the side of the still moving gurney, but another wraps their arms over his torso, and another followed suit, forcing an iron grip around his legs. His heart thunders, the world twisting nauseously around him, and he can't stop the voiceless whine of terror emerging from his throat.

 

The fourth, still pushing the gurney along, quietly laughs, shoulders shaking ever so slightly. And Philip can't stop the shudders that travel down his spine, his whole body beginning to shake in a mimicry of the bastard.

 

Finally, after sweat starts to stream down his temples and into his hair, after his choked back sobs turn into infrequent hiccups and gasps, they push through a set of black doors. Inside, before Philip can gather himself enough to break free from the fuckers’ grasp, he is tied down, gagged, and a blindfold is tied around his head, so tight that it leaves the sensation of prints set into the sides of his skull, a harsh pressure against his ears.

 

They push his gurney against a table, where the removable bed of it is lifted, and he is set onto it. He chews on the gag, body still shuddering intermittently, and he squeezes his hands into fists. A horror crawls up his throat, and all he can see, against the black of his blindfold, that damnable thing, is a red room. Reddened, not by light, but by blood. By fire.

 

Words - _words,_ words he can't understand - tremble out from the walls, whispers from something he can’t see, something that pours itself into the guts of others with glee. And he can _feel_ it, he can feel it again, once more creeping up his chest, stretching his mouth open. Once more, it forces its diseased, sloth fattened body into his mouth, squeezing itself into the narrow shaft of his throat. He gags, senseless words bursting out from around its sluglike body, and Philip _howls._

 

He can hear the startled cries of the men around him, as he seizes, bringing his arms up against the binds, straining against it so hard that the imprints left behind are vivid to him, hot iron pangs searing in the darkness. He tries to blink away the images, the crawling in his windpipe that echoes the past. Philip shakes and twists and moans, unable to stop the cascade.

 

Sounds -- a sound? He knows it. He's heard it before.

 

_Here… warm…_

 

God. A wild fever flashes through him, and the room turns black and white, pinpricks of light and shadow bleeding into the fire, the memories, the imagined taste of burning flesh.

 

_Sleepy… I'm sleepy…_

 

What? What?

 

_Leave me alone… monkey…_

 

His limbs quake in their restrictions, pain swept away in a wave of confusion.

 

His nightmare - wasn't it supposed to crash through the doors or the red room, a slobbering mess of a creature, tearing into him with vicious excitement? Wasn't the slug supposed to rip him asunder, force his two halves into a monstrous amalgamation?

 

He coughs on the gag, sweat soaking his hair, his clothes chafing his skin as he tries to turn into his side. His brain is a mess of half completed, tormented thoughts; of pain, of regret, of a sickness deep and penetrating - why had he believed he had escaped it? There was no escape from a creature, a demon, that inhuman.

 

Distracted, he doesn't notice the whirr of a machine, nor the motion of his bed, sliding carefully back onto the gurney. The click of the mechanism as the two pieces fit back into place does not rowse him. Footsteps, and the gentle sound of wheels on linoleum; none of it he hears.

 

He is almost comatose; when they deposit him back into his room, leaving him trussed up like a sickly, unlucky beast, he does not react. It is little wonder that he falls directly into deep slumber.

 

* * *

 

The man coughs, a thick, unpleasant sound in the warm room. It is swallowed by the crackle of the fire, the warm, earthy light allowing Philip some form of distraction. But why would he need to be distracted? The tea is a gentle comfort in his hands, the platter beside him a quiet offering of food, both bitter and sweet. But the man across from Philip grates on every nerve; he pops sweets into his mouth like grapes, drinking them down with rum, a single cigarette in a loose, fat hand. Smoke curls from his mouth, a cloud that obscures his large, bearded face.

 

“You see, my boy, that it is all quite simple,” the man says, and his words are stuffed with saliva and chocolate, alcohol oozing in delicate trickles from his lips. “Very, very simple indeed. I must say, I ponder as to _why_ you did not see it, as clear as it was.”

 

Philip does not hate the man. A veneer of disgust covers his apathy; a tranquility falls over him, for what does he care what an old, boarish man thinks?

 

“I ponder it, same as you,” he responds, with a voice not his own. It is too soft, quiet, almost inaudible in the room. There's a curl to it, a certain gentility that he knows he does not possess. Even though he pauses, he does not continue his line of thought.

 

The elder chortles, a joyful, ridiculing sound, and he taps his cigarette before huffing another cloud of white smoke from his nose. “I can see that. Dear lad, you must understand, you--”

 

He almost doesn't notice, when the man stops talking. He knows that the other has blabbered on and on, a never ending stream of patronizing remarks, a stream of mutterings and musings alike.

 

When the man stops talking, Philip is gazing into the fire; it reminds him, again, of a man whose face he never saw, a man with a voice of fluid mercury. He is lost in thought of that man, when he hears the elder choke.

 

Philip jerks up, eyes widening. The other has a hand afluttering at his side, a weak scramble against the side table. His other hand grips his throat, choking emerging from his gaping maw, a dying, disturbing noise that clambers in Philip’s ears. A distant thought arrives to him: _what a disgusting man, to die like that. he chose it, by eating that much chocolate._

 

He watches. He watches and does nothing. The man; spit foaming out from that blocked throat, squeezing for breath that would not come; Philip watches, and watches. He feels dizzy, he feels at nothing. He watches, and does nothing. He watches as the man slowly dies.

 

_Damn, Philip. I coulda sworn you believed yerself to be fifty times better than me. Wowie, were you wrong._

 

Philip woke up, and wondered just what the fuck _that_ was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no concept of doctors, blame my moms overall paranoid distrust of doctors lol (pls go to a doctor when youre sick)


	3. Chapter 3

The next few days are spent regularly checking the news, checking with the university, and, perhaps most importantly of all, saving up enough money to take care of a possibly disabled, definitely shell shocked older brother. What the hell could she expect? She didn't know. Ann wasn't hopeful, but she was pragmatic.

 

If the man really was her brother, if her gut was right - her life would be in for one huge renovation.

 

Her boyfriend, of course, wasn't exactly happy that he was being left in the dust, but she just didn't have time anymore. It was a relationship of convenience, anyway, born of a solid friendship and a desire for a sex life. She highly doubted that Philip would be ready to live on his own after what was probably the most traumatic event of his life - if the stories were true, of course. So much yellow tape had been crisscrossed around that little patch of nowhere, that hundreds had been drawn to the sight like a bunch of moths to a porchlight. The news of dozens of bodies, bizarre and dangerous animals that were only barely fended off - and even the people who had traveled the farthest had not yet reached the research facility her possible brother had been recovered from.

 

She had called the number; but evidently, many others either thought they recognized the stranger, or were looking for attention and fame. Ann wanted to say that there would be a response, either to say that the man didn't know her, or proof that she didn't know him. But this silence only said one thing: they wouldn't respond, not for some time.

 

So she continued on with her routine - albeit with some alterations. She no longer hung around her boyfriend's house - the breakup happened in less than a week, and it was amiable, which was all she could ask for. On her days off, she prepped the house, cleaning it, making things easier to find. She was already an introverted sort, and her pensiveness made her more so.

 

Ann got a reply, just two weeks after her break up, four after the first report of the stranger. Now, several adventurous and glory hungry reporters had managed to get into the old research facility, and the reports were, in turns, shocking and confusing. It didn't help when they lost contact. She had spent an entire night chewing her nails to the quick, imagining the ways this story could end. She knew, of course, that whatever happened, public attention was already tapering off. If Philip - if he  _ was _ Philip - said something, it'd blow up again, but for now the major news outlets were quieting down. Ann had to search farther and farther online to find new information. So she was excited to find the new email in her inbox, glad that at least she'd get something new to mull over.

 

_ Ann Buchanan: _

 

_       We have received your call, and, out of the many calls and messages others sent in, yours was recognized. We are happy to inform you that Philip - whom has not disclosed his last name, nor his affiliation with you - affirmed that he recognized you; please respond further if you also recognize this image. We hope to hear back from you soon. _

 

_ Jeremes Islandier _

_ Affiliates of the Northern Islands _

 

Ann’s heart swelled, and she placed a hand over it, hoping to quell the excitement and relief that flooded her. There was not yet a guarantee this was the Philip she knew; after all, ‘Philip’ wasn't an uncommon name. But as she opened the attached photograph, she  _ knew _ that it was him.

 

There he was; skinnier, gaunt in a way he had never been before, hair limp and pale against his flushed, roughened skin. His eyes were strained, bags sagging underneath, but the blue of them glowed. There were three images, each taken unobstructedly. She tried to suppress the suspicion that they were taken without consent, and instead focused on the very real, very trembling feeling that had overtaken her.

 

Her brother. That was her  _ brother. He was alive. _

 

She had to stifle a sob that wrestled about in her chest, but tears still wettened her cheeks. God, she hadn't even known just how much she'd been worried; just how much of her childhood fascination, her childhood idolation - how much had survived? For her to care so much for someone so absent, it was just… incomprehensible.

 

But care she did. She  _ cared. _ There was the proof: brought to tears just by seeing his face: alive and - well, not  _ well  _ \- after trying and failing to look for him for over a year. Had she really done that? Had she really spent almost every free moment she had, huddled in front of a computer, phone in hand, taking as many chances as she could to visit London and Mayfair, just to look for someone who had never even implied he cared about her? Had she really done that?

 

Some part of her hated that she'd spent so much on someone she barely knew. Yet, in her mind's eye, she recalled a face, smiling down at her. She recalled thin, soft hands, picking her up gently; she remembered gifts at holidays, and surprises on birthdays, and she remembered his quiet company, when he deigned to sit with her while she struggled through maths and science. Before he had left, before she was old enough for him to believe it right to leave - and even when Ann herself was a teenager, struggling to break free from the dependency she'd known all her life - he hadn't been kind, not at all. But he had given her the smallest things, and they had meant so much to her.

 

Ann couldn't bear the thought of Philip dead somewhere, no one left to mourn him. She had thought that she'd find a body, or nothing at all. So, as she finally let herself crumble, tears of relief and ignored exhaustion pouring down her face, she smiled.

 

* * *

They responded quickly, and a correspondence lights between them easily and readily. Ann was blown away at how neatly things fell into place; Philip was an adult, and fully autonomous, but the Affiliates wanted someone to help in his medical care. There was, luckily, very little damage done, but the strange nature of some of his injuries called for a caretaker of some kind. Because Ann was related to him, and was fully willing to offer her home to him, they accepted her as such. She would still collaborate with a nurse, but no residential care employed by outside organizations was required. She definitely rested easier with the knowledge that a stranger wouldn't be living in her apartment with her. Or, well, she meant a stranger not of her choosing. As for Philip, all she knew was that he had confirmed his relation to her, and was happy to accept her offer. She didn't know if that truly was the case, but she hoped that the Affiliates could be trusted in telling the truth.

 

And so, after a year of searching for an enigmatic elder brother, and a month of struggling to reach him, she was scheduled to pick him up on a cold Wednesday afternoon.

 

The meeting place was, luckily, not extremely far away. She had relocated to America within a few years of leaving her childhood behind, and lived not too far from New York. There was no way in hell she could afford the city, but she found herself taking fond visits on occasion to the place. Now, she was glad that she had; familiarity helped guide her to the meeting spot in good time.

 

Said meeting spot was in a somewhat hidden area; a statue of some great general in some horrific war loomed over the bit of grass and trees, a few benches here and there offering respite for pedestrians. She parked, spotting a black, nondescript car nearby. It was fairly large, and, as she got out of her car, several men climbed out of it. A blonde head caught her attention, and she began hurrying over.

 

One of the men in suits held up a broad hand, and Ann halted. Philip - it had to be Philip, with his hair so pale and figure so stick thin, he stuck out like a sore thumb in the group of suited, muscular strangers - raised his head, and his eyes fell upon her. They widened, and genuine shock overtook his expression, before a thin mask of calm covered it.

 

Ann steeled herself, imagining herself to be immovable stone, impassable mountain. “I'm Ann Buchanan; I assume you are representatives of the Affiliates?”

 

When the men stared in answer, she sighed and pulled out her I.D. card. The one in charge - a burly, dark haired man - nodded, and the tension began to drain away.

 

“Ms. Buchanan. We are pleased to meet you; please excuse our behavior,” The man said. “We've had a few close calls with reporters.”

 

Ann nodded. Even with the public quieting down, there were still those reporting on the story. And Philip was easily recognizable, at this point.

 

“Hi, Philip,” said Ann, smiling slightly. She offered her hand, but when he just stares, she shoves it back into her jacket pocket. “Um… you know, me, right? I know that this is all… a lot, to process. I've been trying to find you for a year. You could've left a note or something, about where you'd gone…”

 

Her tone grows bitter at the end, and maybe he was irritated at her too-gentle tone at the beginning, but her unsaid words seem to reach him just fine, judging by the guilty look he has now.

 

_ You could've said something - anything. _

 

_ You could've died down there, and I would've never known. _

 

_ I would've kept looking. _

 

“It wasn't… I didn't…” Philip sighs. “I'm sorry. So, I'm going with you?”

 

Ann lets the subject slide, and it doesn't escape her notice how he says ‘going with you.’ She sees the men stiffen out of the corner of her eye, but ignores them. “Yup. We can figure out details on the way back to my house.”

 

He seems to understand what she's really saying, and his eyes dart between her and the men surrounding them. Philip nods, after a moment.

 

“We'll just take off, then. Thank you so much for this,” Ann nods to the men, and they nod back. After a few handshakes, a paper that she quickly reads through and signs with a false name (they don't even notice), they go their separate ways.

 

Philip is quiet, as they begin the drive back to her apartment. His eyes follow the blur of the road outside, but she lets him sit, and breathe.

 

He seems like he needs it.

**Author's Note:**

> the sole reason i wrote this was because of the persistence of the scene in the first chap and the dream scene in the second chap. that dream sequence was actually something i experienced at work (from the pov of philip), when i was running on an hour of sleep lol
> 
> plus im not bothering with html editing, so thisll kinda look crappy :/


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